My friends’ expressions were all varied in their details, but uniformly awed.
I laughed again, and finally smiles dared to inch across their stunned faces, all splattered and smeared with dull gray blood.
“He’s alive,” I breathed, nearly afraid I was imagining this result as much as my magic.
Bobo blinked rapidly as if to dispel the gunk that covered his eyelids. When his tongue emerged and started to lick his face clean, he grimaced with a spread of jowls, pulling his head back into his neck until his skin wrinkled and he gagged. Then he stuck out his tongue and gacked, his eyes going wide.
I laughed again, as did my friends.
a voice with a lisp, sweet and innocent like a child’s, said into my mind.
It took me an entire minute to process that it came from my dog.
14
Beast Mode with the Best Sidekick Ever
Iwas on absolute overload. Shit, my overload was on overload.
Our wannabe overlord Magnum was four people, and his right-hand gal was a … a … I had no fucking clue what Fanny was beyond definitelynot human, and definitely not pretty to look at, or to taste, based on Bobo’s continued reactions to her bodily fluids coating his tongue.
He hadn’t stopped grimacing, hacking, and scrunching up his face. My dog was being dramatic, but damn if he hadn’t earned the right to his theatrics.
To think all we’d set out to do was leave Ridgemore… Not only could we not escape the quaint mountainous town that was feeling less and less quaint by the second, but we were stuck inside its boundaries withnot-humans.
Not.
Humans.
My chest heaved from the effort of taking on a monster to save Bobo, but more from the dismay of achieving it. Shock vibrated along the length of my body, making me numb all over. If I started shaking from the adrenaline dump, I might never stop.
I stared down at Bobo until my eyes blurred.
Eventually, Hunt murmured,
Layla asked.
I glanced up to find her collapsed on the ground, too near a seeping pool of gray goop, leaning heavily against her twin.
We delayed in answering only a beat, but it was long enough for Layla to sit up and whine,
Bobo’s hacking ceased. His head jerked upward and off my arm. His ears perked.
Griffin scooted next to me. Hunt leaned low over Bobo. And Layla and Brady slid so close Brady pressed his arm along the length of mine.
Layla asked in an awed whisper.
Brady said, almost reverently.
Bobo’s head jerked again.
When none of us were quick to reply, he added,
With his toddler-like inflections and the lisp, his esses sounded likethes.Noodlesbecamenoodleth.Lostbecamelothst.
